


Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart

by 2towels



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (not genuinely), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Drinking, Flirting, Heart Attacks, Klance Month 2018, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nobody is Dead, Platonic Relationships, Pop Culture, they talk about vore very lowkey, you will understand the Major Character Death I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2towels/pseuds/2towels
Summary: “I’m Lance! Nice to meet you! Can I ask you something? Just fielding here, no funny business!”No, Keith wants to say as he glances at Pidge’s circle again and sees her throw her head back and scream something victorious at the ceiling. He doesn’t even think they’re playing flip-cup anymore. “Shoot.” He says instead, peering mysteriously into his drink as he moves his hand from over the lip of it. It’s just water, but clearly something has afflicted him if he’s going to indulge the guy. Maybe Pidge’s enthusiasm is infectious from across the way.Lance’s lips quirk very wide before he seems to be able to calm his expression. “Well, I am a sharpshooter!” He blurts, blinking when Keith blinks in turn at him. His shoulders bunch, then, and he barrels on, “Nevermind. Anyway, uh, would you ever date a zombie? Quick survey.”--Klance Month 2018: Hogwarts Week





	Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Happy KlanceMonth y'all i'm back on my bullshit this counts because there's a Harry Potter reference!
> 
> Title is from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLZ3n1EkY2Q) PLEASE laugh with me

                It’s the noise that swells and surrounds Keith that bothers him the most about the parties so late in the semester, the people not nearly so much of a pain to the unapproachable figure he’s made of himself at the edge of the room. He likes to think himself a dedicated friend, though, so he remains at his post. Pidge is hyper-focused on a game of flip-cup in a gathering not ten feet from Keith’s wall, and he tries to keep a very sharp gaze on her disappearing pigtails as they tuck between bodies rapidly for her turn again and again, them being the only real point of her he can even keep sight of in the group. A part of him, protective and loyal, wonders what his real responsibility in this situation is—wait for her to want to go home or wait for her to look like she _should_ want to go home?—he’s a little lost, and Pidge is a little too much of a freshman to be left to her own devices, but she was excited to go and grinned so sharply when Keith said he would watch out for her so how could he have said no?

                Maybe he’ll just cut her off after a few more pigtail tucks. The night’s starting to get long, and her fingers are starting to fling in victory above the heads around her, so her enthusiasm has reached obvious intoxication stages. Maybe Shiro had advice for this Keith should have asked for before he left. Keith considers this heavily for a moment, but when he looks away from the flip-cup gathering he realizes there’s a body that’s slowly inching closer to him and he sighs deeply, covering his drink with his hand while he closes his eyes a minute.

                “Hey!” Someone yells over the chatter around them just enough for Keith to know it’s directed at him. He takes another deep breath before opening his eyes and looking at the approaching body that is clearly the source of the sound, and sure enough the body has stopped at a berth of just a foot and a half between Keith and them. He’s bright-eyed as he probably mistakes Keith’s critical staring for a check-out, taking a quick sip of a beer bottle and hiding the way his nose wrinkles behind a few artfully dancing fingers. “What’s your name, man?” He asks loudly when Keith only continues staring.

                “Keith.” Keith says purposefully quietly, glancing to the flip-cup gathering and away when he’s caught pigtails again. The guy is nodding like the volume wasn’t any trouble, though, and he takes a _very_ bold step forward to crowd into Keith’s space before settling on the wall beside him. Keith considers leaving, but the only other similar or better vantage point is the stairs, filled with drunken stumblers, or just shy of actually joining the gathering itself. Both are terrible options.

                The guy smiles brightly, hides another nose-wrinkling sip of his beer behind a hand, and says, “I’m Lance! Nice to meet you! Can I ask you something? Just fielding here, no funny business!”

                _No_ , Keith wants to say as he glances at Pidge’s circle again and sees her throw her head back and scream something victorious at the ceiling. He doesn’t even think they’re playing flip-cup anymore. “Shoot.” He says instead, peering mysteriously into his drink as he moves his hand from over the lip of it. It’s just water, but clearly something has afflicted him if he’s going to indulge the guy. Maybe Pidge’s enthusiasm is infectious from across the way.

                Lance’s lips quirk very wide before he seems to be able to calm his expression. “Well, I am a sharpshooter!” He blurts, blinking when Keith blinks in turn at him. His shoulders bunch, then, and he barrels on, “Nevermind. Anyway, uh, would you ever date a zombie? Quick survey.”

                “Depends.” Keith answers immediately, repeating it louder when Lance tilts his head like he hasn’t heard the response. The hand holding the beer bottle makes a circular sort of gesture, and Keith sips his water sourly as he realizes he’s made conversation.  He checks for Pidge’s pigtails. “How inhumanely zombie would they be? Like, grossly? Would they try to eat me?”

                “Biting kink levels, probably no permanent damage.” Lance laughs very loudly and brightly, his eyes shiny and matching the mirth in his pitch in a fine tune. “Think _Warm Bodies_ , have you seen that movie?”

                Keith tries, “No. Are you trying to set a zombie you know up?”

                Lance sips his beer again and doesn’t hide the wrinkle of his nose in time, and Keith thinks watching the point of his nose scrunch may be stuck on a permanent loop in his head. To save Lance from doing it again, Keith finishes his water to toss the cup away and slowly takes the beer from Lance’s hand. Lance’s bright eyes give no protest, but they do look surprised. “I told you, I’m just taking a survey!” He assures, still loud and seeming to watch Keith with an absolute raptness while Keith sips from the bottle himself. It’s pretty bad beer, but he can keep his nose from scrunching up like Lance’s had. “ _Warm Bodies_ is, like, about this zombie who falls in love! You should watch it! It’s really romantic! He’s got a beating heart, he feels an absolute devotion for a human he sees after he eats her boyfriend!”

                While without the finesse of being able to convey the words _Sounds het I’m out_ through gaze alone like Pidge is so often able to and so well—(Keith checks for Pidge’s pigtails)—Keith tries his best in his skepticism for the description, and Lance barrels on when Keith says nothing. “Really! It’s really good!” _Earnest. Cute._ “He, like, turns—oh, fuck, wait. I don’t want to spoil it.”

                Keith feels a laugh bubble over the lip of his stolen bottle, and Lance looks delighted despite the fact that he has to be aware there was no way Keith was ever going to watch that movie or even remember what the hell it’s called. “Alright.” Keith tries to steer them back, stamping down a smaller chuckle while Lance leans closer. “So, I’d probably date one if it hadn’t eaten anyone yet and wasn’t going to, but that pretty much goes against the definition of zombiehood.”

                “Wrong!” Lance sings in his ear, invading all of his space in an almost pleasant way. “A zombie is just a revived corpse! You can totally be one without having eaten a person. It’s nowhere near a dietary requirement, not even in the dictionary definition! Dude, you just broke my pie chart!”

                It’s difficult to keep his expression carefully neutral so close, but Keith manages, pulling only enough away to fit the length of the bottle between them for another sip. “Yeah? Too many rejections?”

                Lance’s voice is quieted suddenly when he speaks again, closer to Keith’s ear than ever and very intimate in the loud room that Keith all at once realizes is _full_ of bodies pressed up against one another. “Yeah,” He begins, words some kind of astonished, “My stats prof is going to go nuts for this point one percent. Way to be an outlier, Keith.” He says his name like a puzzle piece he’s still turning, but he keeps leaning in still, and it’s only when Keith taps the lip of the bottle to Lance’s cheek does he pull away fractionally to look him in the eyes. “What if I told you,” He licks his lips before he smiles almost nervously and keeps watching Keith, and Keith tries not to let his amusement get the best of him at what seems to be such an earnest attempt at flirting that has yet to turn sour for even a second, “That I was a regular ol’ Harry Potter, Keith?”

                “You’re a wizard? What house are you?” Keith asks immediately, hiding his grin in another sip when Lance blinks in confusion.

                “No—well, I’m a—That’s not _important_!” He… _pouts,_ and Keith pauses as he lowers his hand, the empty glass in it feeling like a weight suddenly. Lance perks right back up when Keith’s eyes are back on him, continuing as if nothing had happened, “I’m a regular ol’ _boy who lived_ , get it?” He winks lavishly, and when both bright eyes are open again he steamrolls on while Keith only stares, “I’m Mr. Paranorman! A _zombie boy_!”

                “Norman could talk to ghosts,” Keith says skeptically, not sure where this is going and genuinely confused by the train of thought but very happy to be on the ride so far. “He wasn’t actually a zombie.”

                Lance holds up a very soft looking hand, “That’s what they wrote on his locker, _hellooo_? ‘Zombie Boy.’ Anyway, I’m a zombie!” He winks at Keith again, probably for good measure, and Keith blinks while he leans back a little from the blast zone.

                He finally settles on, “Okay.” The silence that stretches between them in the very loud room is somehow hysterical, but Keith can’t really find the heart to laugh at it now when he had been entertaining the thought that Lance was so beautiful and genuinely charming just a few moments a go.

                It takes a few long moments, but eventually Lance leans completely out of Keith’s space, puffs his cheeks out, and averts his gaze. He does a complicated sort of averted hand gesture before he begins speaking, quieter than before but still loud enough for Keith to hear over the crowd. “Sorry, I feel like I made you uncomfortable, but I wasn’t trying to blindside you by hitting on you. That was sort of happening the whole time, my bad.”

                “I know you were hitting on me, Lance.” Keith reports, incredulity unable to be suppressed over the fact that Lance is somehow finding room to _apologize_ to him right now.

                They spend a moment trading uncertain glances, and Lance speaks up again, “I don’t know what happened, then. Is the zombie thing weird? Most people just laugh.”

                Keith wants to take a long moment and use all of the social skills he doesn’t possess to properly explain to Lance that he wishes he had a single idea what on Earth was going on or what they were talking about, but before he can even open his mouth again, Pidge barrels into his waist with her spindly arms to begin clinging to him, a pitched noise coming from her throat. “You ready to go home?” He asks automatically, some sort of Shiro-autodrive booting in the back of his mind and taking over all of his other operative systems.

                After some firm nodding into his stomach, Pidge begins hastily trying to climb onto his back instead, and Keith stays still all the while, knowing she’ll find her most comfortable position in a moment. When he catches a glance at Lance’s face again, he looks _beyond_ put out and uncomfortable, his eyes darting across the room and his throat clearing. “Sorry again,” He suddenly blurts, two half-steps tripping over one another as he pivots a little in place looking for an immediate out from the disaster that had been created, “See yo—”

                “Hey!” Pidge pops her head over Keith’s shoulder once she’s perfectly in place, and Keith can see her sharp grin from the corner of his eye just before half of her face squishes into his cheek. He rolls his eyes, but Lance stops in place at the address. “You’re in my BioChem, right?”

                “Yaw.” Lance says after a very long beat, looking as if he’s almost sweating as he looks between Keith and Pidge. Keith realizes something simultaneously and wants to lean over to vomit all of the nasty beer out.

                Tactfully, Pidge pets at Keith’s bangs with no gentleness while she asks, “Aren’t you the guy whose heart stopped for, like, two minutes at the beginning of the semester?” Lance looks very trapped, but nods, and Pidge laughs very loudly in Keith’s ear despite how horrible that sounds for a spry looking guy like him. “ _How_ did you catch up—Keith put me back down.” Keith complies slowly so she doesn’t hurt herself, and Pidge wobbles forward to bother Lance while Keith blinks an awareness into himself and Lance flushes dark and ruddy on his cheeks. “That class is terrible I swear to god Honerva has material trampstamped she’s terrible—” Pidge is slurring as she leans on Lance, and Lance blinks and laughs but holds her up and steady, “I don’t know how a person can literally have _died_ and keep up with that class, you have to be a fucking wizard.” She mumbles the sentiment a few more times, and Keith finally reaches forward to brace her shoulders and pull her back.

                “You died?” He asks like a moron, surprise coloring his features and ruining his nonchalant façade and all of the fun flirting they had been engaged in that was ruined by misunderstanding. Pidge leans back against him heavily, sighing loudly before giggling and looking up at him.

                “I bet he was using those zombie pick-up lines on you, Keith. I bet they worked, you’re such a fucking weirdo.” Pidge cackles suddenly, shaking her head quickly to make herself even the slightest bit more aware so she can climb up Keith’s back again. He stays still for the assault and tries to bring the neutrality back in a losing battle. Pidge giggles throughout her entire climb.

                Lance lets what may be a smile if it wasn’t a painful grimace cross his face. “I mean it was a clinical death, yeah, uh. My heart stopped, like she said. Uh, a lot of people know about it because I got, like, _a million_ cards from the student body so I just kind of assume people figure out who I am at the zombie question, sorry.”

                “You’re kind of a big deal.” Keith says because he thinks that’s a meme Pidge has sent him before and he feels bad he’s asking Lance to retell some medical history in the middle of some shitty frat party while he’s balancing a drunk girl on his back when Lance probably wandered over only to see if Keith wanted to make out in a corner somewhere. Keith wanted to, a little. He tries to piece together a few months ago and wonders what the school papers looked like and if Matt was crowing about something like some student dying then not—it just sounds like something he would never shut up about—and the more he thinks about it, the more he probably could have connected the dots, but Lance’s eyes are really bright, so how was he supposed to think of some random kid he didn’t know who had a heart attack at their age when he looked at him?

                Lance’s lips do a half sort of a smile, and he shrugs. “Yeah, sort of. Fit as a fiddle now. Well, not really, but the zombie jokes are really fun. Uh—” He glances at Pidge, who lifts her head from Keith’s shoulder and slaps a hand on his mouth before he can say anything.

                “We should study for BioChem together with that other guy partner with before I forget. Don’t let me forget when I’m sober, Keith.” She says very seriously to Lance. Lance nods, a small and hesitant smile on his lips, and Keith nods into her hand while narrowing his eyes until she removes it.

                “She’s like my little sister.” Keith is quick to assure a little loudly, adjusting Pidge on his back and shuffling forward a little bit.

                Pidge drops her head into his shoulder again and says, “Everyone knows you’re fucking gay, holy shit.”

                “He doesn’t when you _drape your drunk self_ —”

                “Oh.” Lance says it quietly, but Keith still whips his head up to catch his eye and sees him smiling a little shyly at the floor. “That’s cute. Get her home safe, okay?”

                Keith is halfway through nodding automatically at the instruction when he realizes Lance is walking away. Without warning, he jolts forward and huffs, “Lance!” Pidge whines sharply, digging dagger fingers into the space under his armpit enough to make him want to throw her under a train, but he barrels on and says it again until Lance turns, bewildered. Incredulous but determined, Keith demands, “I said I’d date one, didn’t I? Give me your number. Point oh one.”

                “Holy shit.” Pidge grumbles very quietly.

                Lance blinks with his brilliant and bright eyes before his entire face seems to break out into the same brightness, a smile spreading easily across his lips and his shoulders tucking up while he fumbles a minute at his pockets. “Right! Duh, you’re into the kinky biting we talked about. Don’t think I’ll be forgetting it either, buddy!” He procures a small ballpoint from the depths of his cozy looking jacket and with no other options when Lance looks lost again Keith thrusts a bare arm forward, grunting as Pidge compensates by hooking her leg around his waist and jutting her foot into his stomach very unkindly.

                “Don’t.” Keith challenges while Lance meticulously makes sure each number appears on Keith’s pale flesh below his own name, “Bring an appetite, zombie.”

                “Thanks for being weird, I love it.” Lance breathes as he finishes, taking an extra moment to put a smiley face next to the final digit as well. Keith, for a moment as he stares at it, wants to drop Pidge entirely.

 

* * *

 

                The compromise, pleasant as it may be, is that they watch _Warm Bodies_ at Keith’s apartment while their hands roam, and Keith learns that it’s Lance’s favorite movie not by Lance telling him such but by him getting distracted by flicking his gaze over to the screen too often. It’s softening to watch, and dorky, and the movie is just as terrible as Keith hoped it wasn’t when Lance said they had to watch it but he expectedly enjoys every moment tucked against Lance, tame as they may be. When they heat up, Lance nervously explains that sometimes he gets short of breath and dizzy so it’s hard for him to do very physical things anymore, and he says it with such a ruddy face and averted eyes that Keith’s only logical response is that of course they can be mindful of however he’s feeling. For a moment, Lance looks so breathlessly relieved that Keith wonders how many people have given him the wrong answer, but then Lance immediately grabs a handful of his ass while they lay back down on the couch and Keith can’t contain his surprised laugh.

                For good measure, and because maybe in the end it was pretty deserving, Keith keeps a copy of _Warm Bodies_ on Blu-ray at his apartment for the next million dates to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes! you! watch! movies! about! happy! zombies! to! cope!
> 
> I was going to have Lance make "can u heal my broken heart" jokes too but I wanted to be finished in time and I couldn't find more room sorry!! Lmao why hasn't anyone written a modern au version of Lance dying for a minute people do that link me if i've missed it
> 
> Anyway sorry i've been absent i'm working on a huge something I promise ;^))
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr ♥](https://2towels.tumblr.com/post/174488924392/if-anyones-interested)


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